Legoland is that place in your town or urban area where medium-height buildings (10-25 stories) seem to have sprouted almost overnight between about 1985 and today. Such an area with a high Legoland factor will boast modestly asymmetrical offices and hotels, and a fair degree of dark gray window glass, set among multilane roads and parking garages. Because of zoning designed to benefit large corporate builders, there will be an absence of such attractive nuisances as billboards and strip malls. Public transit will be close to nonexistent.

--What's the most Legoland place in the Chicago area?

--Many people would say Schaumburg but I would nominate the area west of Chicago at the intersection of the I-88 Reagan Toll Road and I-355. The buildings are all modern and were probably considered modestly daring in the past 25 years when they were built, but in reality are unchallenging and dull.

--Why doesn't Schaumburg qualify?

--It has some newer buildings but also lots from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Eighties, a style more Judgment City than Legoland.